The market for portable devices (mobile devices that we can carry including notebooks) continues to soar in spite of economic difficulties and general uncertainty. Although personal devices are not necessarily replacing the PC, they are outselling the PC. All of these devices have a graphics processor (GPU) integrated in the device's system on a chip (SoC) application processor.

JPR has just released a new market study, Mobile Devices and the GPUs Inside, and found that Qualcomm has over 32% of the total market for personal mobile devices
Other SoC suppliers that buy GPU IP are Allwiner, Freescale, Huawei, MediaTek, Rockchip, Wonder Media/VIA and others. These companies have participated in the feature phone market, and some of them have recently entered the smartphone, tablet, and handheld game machine segment.

One area that is fueling the growth of portable SoCs is the exploding tablet market in China, which is contributing significantly to the astounding growth that ARM and Vivante are experiencing. As a result of this tablet surge in China, dramatic changes are expected during the next 12 months. Apple introduced a 7-inch tablet, Microsoft brought out its Surface tablet, and Texas Instruments will continue to supply Amazon (even though the company has pulled back from the smartphone market as Nokia loses market share).

As a result of the turbulence in the market, we expect market shares to shift dramatically through 2013.

Over four dozen semiconductor suppliers (Broadcom, Apple, Intel, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Qualcomm, Samsung, etc.) produce application processors. All of those companies fall into one of two categories: vertically integrated, or IP buyers. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm are the vertically integrated companies with their own GPU and CPU designs; all of the other companies buy GPU IP from one of four IP suppliers (ARM, DMP, Imagination Technologies, or Vivante). The exceptions to this tidy categorization are Samsung, which has an internal GPU design as well as purchasing IP from ARM and Imagination Technologies. Broadcom is also an exception; it has an internal design GPU as well as buying IP from ARM.

The leading high-volume suppliers of application processors (i.e., SoCs) are Apple, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Samsung. ARM supplies GPU IP for some of Samsung's mobile phones, while Imagination Technologies' GPU IP is used in Apple, Texas Instruments, and some of Samsung's mobile phones and tablets.

The upcoming SoC suppliers with impressive design wins to their credit are Intel (proprietary GPU) and Nvidia (proprietary GPU). Qualcomm however, is the giant in the industry.

JPR's new Mobile Devices and the GPUs inside market study reports on portable and personal devises, and provides a market forecast to 2018.

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